Back in December, I signed up for the St. Luke's 5K in April, thinking it would be my first real race. But after running in San Diego over New Year's with Nate, I knew I couldn't wait that long. I started looking for a race in February and found the Polar Bear Run in Sea Isle City, NJ, which happend to also be on my birthday. Since I was only running between 2 and 2.5 miles, I knew I would have to pick up my training a bit. By a week before the race, I was up to 3.2 miles and was averaging under 9 min/miles on the hills of Clinton, despite a minor setup back on Super Bowl Sunday with a calf pull. Taking a week off, two weeks before the race, was almost as hard as avoiding sick people for the last 2 weeks. I did shorter, more intense runs last week and by Friday was as ready as I could be.Last night, I had a good dinner (whole wheat pasta, chicken sausage, mushroom & broccoli) and tried to get to bed early, knowing I wouldn't sleep well. As I expected, I was up at 6:30, even though the alarm was set for 7. I had my yogurt, got dressed, packed some cereal, a quick stop at Citispot, and I was off for Sea Isle. I took the route that followed the Garden State most of the way and the musical choice was Sirius/XM's Springsteen channel. They were featuring acoustic/stripped down versions of his songs, which fit my mood and probably kept me from driving 85 mph.
As it was, I arrived two hours early for the race. This would be no surprise to my former hockey teammates - I was always the first one in the locker room for games. I'm not generally early - just for competing. To say I had nervous energy today would be an understatement. After collecting my bib (#16) and my souvenir t-shirt - I tried to chill in the car with my iPad. What I ended up doing was taking a jog, endlessly stretching, walking the Promenade (Sea Isle's boardwalk), going the bathroom twice and generally just nervously bouncing.
At Noon, we finally lined up for the race and unfortunately, they did not have people grouped by pace. When the horn sounded, I didn't really have to worry about starting too fast, it took a bit to get everyone moving. I was using RunKeeper on my phone and clicked Start as I passed the start/finish line. The phone was a blessing and (maybe) a curse. At the 0.5 mile mark, my pace was 9:30, so I decided to push it a bit. I may have over compensated for the slow start, but luckily didn't do it too much. The race heads down the Promenade, then into the streets. At the half way point, it turns and follows the same course back. The course out was dead downwind which meant coming back was tough. The last part on the Promenade was particularly bad. When I was on the Promenade, I tried to run on the rail so I could watch the Ocean. As I was running, I passed people and got passed, but it's hard to know whether someone is really faster or slower than you given the start and people's different styles of running. I took the advice of a friend, "your pace, your race", and just tried to be comfortable. At the end of the race, they filed us into cattle chutes and collected a tag off our bibs. They stopped us so quickly, I actually ran into the person in front of me. Not really sure how they timed us, but the phone said 27:58 (See it on RunKeeper). That's better than I expected but not as good as I wished for. I guess that defines racing.
After the race, I jogged to my car, switched into some warmer clothes and headed to the tent to get a bagel and juice. I didn't stay for the awards and raffle and speeches, not because Autism isn't a great cause (it is), I was just ready to head home. A 2.5 hour ride home maybe isn't the best idea after a run (even with a stop for coffee) - I was pretty stiff when I got home. A long shower, some Advil and a beer seemed to help though.
Thanks to everyone for putting up with me prattling on about this race for the past 2 weeks. It was the culmination of the past 8 months of going from overweight slug to reasonably fit runner.
Special thanks to Paula for being my Sensei, Yoda, and inspiration on this journey. She talked me down when I had the calf pull two weeks before the race and gave me great tips for the last week of training and running the race. I'm still on pace for the OC Half this year.
